Tag: Windows

Posted on

Move hidden Window

Dear reader,
Recent events made me get this tip way from my old days. When I was young and Windows 3.1 was the most amazing thing i had ever seen.
Ahh the good old days!
Anyway, have you ever struggled with a window that opens outside the visible screen? Or even the ones that stays just ever so slightly off that your mouse pointer just can’t move them?
Mostly the cause is simple different screen resolutions, removing an additional screen, going from a remote session in Full HD to a lame laptop screen… who cares.
It just happens.
Well at least now you’ll know what to do, with a few simple steps, and a working keyboard:
1.     Alt-tab to the misbehaving window;
2.     Press Alt+Space;
3.     Press M;
4.     Press any Arrow keys to bring the window back to full visibility or just once and then move the mouse. The window position should now follow the mouse cursor.
There you go.
No more plugging screens and rebooting or any other time wasting trickery.
Enjoy.
Bonus tip: Since Windows 7, you can do it even faster, by using the snap window function. Just select the window with Alt + tab and use Windows Key + Arrow key to snap to one of the sides.
Posted on

Shortcut to Mail is broken in Control Panel

Hello everyone,
Some time ago I had a problem with a user’s Outlook profile not opening. So as usual, I went straight to Control Panel to troubleshoot the e-mail profile, but to my surprise the shortcut to Mail 32 Bits was not functioning.
After searching around for a while, I found a workaround that didn’t require to rebuild the user’s profile.
And the workaround is:
Create a  shortcut for “C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14MLCFG32.CPL”
Or
 
Go to Start -> Run and type Control MLCFG32.CPL or Control MLCFG64.CPL – if 32 or 64 bits.
And that is it, the Mail console we all know is available again.
Just a couple of notes on this.
1. If you use the shortcut version of the workaround, the path might vary depending on your Office version and installation path.
2. This is a workaround. It will not solve the issue with the user profile, but might give you some more time to plan.
Happy troubleshooting.
Posted on

Windows 8 – Change default programs

Hi there.

Have your new Windows installed, but you want to customize the behavior of the OS.

Let’s say you don’t want the Metro style apps to open you pictures.

So just open your metro style start menu or press WIN+W and type default. You should see the “Default Programs” app.

Open it and edit your defaults.

 

In case you are wondering … Yes you could just get here through the control panel. I just find this way faster.

 

Enjoy.

Posted on

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 – Problems with activation

The new versions of Windows are out, and with them come a whole new set of little challenges.

So let’s start from the beginning.

You just installed your new OS and you get a DNS error when trying to activate it.

Well, here’s how you go about it.

 

Open a command line with Administrative privileges and type:

slmgr.vbs /ipk followed by your serial key. Press enter and there you have it. A brand new activated Windows.

Enjoy.

Posted on

Software installation asks for reboot even after reboot

Sometimes you’re installing a software and you get an error stating that you need to reboot before installing.

So far, so good, but, occasionally you get that error again after the reboot. In that case, follow this procedure:

  1. Open Regedit
  2. Find the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession Manager”
  3. Rename the “PendingFileRenameOperations” value to “PendingFileRenameOperations2”
  4. Try again.

 

 

Posted on

Change last logon user

Sometimes, as a sysadmin, you need to access a workstation to do some maintenance, and you don’t want the user to be asking you why he has to type is username again the next day.
Well, here’s a sollution.
Before shutting down the workstation just open the registry editor and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionAuthenticationLogonUILastLoggedOnUser
Edit the LastLoggedOnUser key and type the username you want to see on the next reboot.
Posted on

Windows Server Core – What now?

So you just installed you first Windows Server Core and you don’t really know what to do now.
Well, here’s some help. To configure the basics of your brand new server you can use the command sconfig. It will show you a nice Powershell menu to help you out.

Now you can configure the basic settings for your server without feeling lost.

Posted on

Security Options for Anonymous Acccess to File Share on Windows Server 2003

Sometimes you need to create a file share that is truly public. No logins or passwords.
Here’s how.
Enable the guest account in Users and Groups console in Computer Management and give it a blank password.
Then allow the guest account in the Local Policies.

Open gpedit.msc and go to:

Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options -> Accounts: Guest account status: enabled

 

Then allow network access for anonymous logins.

Again, using gpedit.msc and go to:
Network Access: allow anonymous SID/Name translation: disabled
Network Access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts: enabled
Network Access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts and shares: disabled
Network Access: let everyone permissions apply to anonymous users: enabled
Network Access: restrict remote access to named pipes and shares: disabled

Finally, allow anonymous logon to the machine.

Open gpedit.msc and go to:

Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment ->
Access this computer from the network: everyone, anonymous logon

You can deploy this policy locally or via Group Policy.

If you want, and I think you will, you can then limited access to the shares using the windows firewall and a custom IP/subnet list.

Posted on

Who’s listening

When you want to find out what port is that service running on there’s a nice command to help you.

It’s called netstat and it’s available on Windows and Linux.

Here’s a couple of usage examples:

  • Find who’s connected to your port 25 (Usually SMTP Server).
  • Windows: netstat -ano | findstr :25 | findstr ESTABLISHED
  • Linux: netstat -ano | grep :25 | grep ESTABLISHED
  • Find what port’s are listening.
  • Windows: netstat -ano |  findstr LISTENING
  • Linux: netstat -ano | grep LISTENING

You can use multiple combinations of this command with regular expression filters to get what you need. This is a great tool to find what ports are being used and from where.

Enjoy.

Posted on

Ctrl + Alt + Del in RDP

I’m sure this has happened before to many people. And I’m sure it will happen again.

For some reason, explorer blocks in your RDP session, and you want to open task manager, and you can’t do Ctrl + Alt+ Del because it will open the computers Task Manager menu and not the RDP session menu. So how do you get there? Simple. Microsoft has another keyboard shortcut for that. Just press Ctrl + Alt + End and that’s it.